STATE LEAGUE ROUND 8
31 JANUARY 2002

The Box Hill Men's State League team finished fourth in Round 8 of State League competition tonight, being beaten by Essendon, Bayside and Glenhuntly, and only just managing to beat Yarra.

The evening started badly with Cameron Baker "no-heighting" in the pole vault and David Featherstone just missing qualifying in the javelin with a throw of 45.15m. With no walkers, hammer thrower, discus thrower, high jumper or triple jumper and only one runner in the steeple and 110 m hurdles it was going to be tough to be competitive from this situation.

Despite missing 3 of our best runners, the 100 m runners all ran impressively with Mohammad Zeed finishing third in 11.29, Lane Harrison third in 11.35 and James Fildes third in 11.58. Michael Jones then ran a sensible race in the first heat of the 1500 to finish third in 3:56.7 while Barry Lynch finished off strongly in the second heat to finish 5th in 4:03.8 in front of Dale Bickham who faded in the last lap to finish 6th and just miss qualifying with a time of 4:05.8.

Toby Pallett, just returned from Scandinavia managed fourth place in the shot put while the 4x100 m team of Marty Duke, James Fildes, Lane Harrison and Mohammad Zeed ran a great race to finish a close second to Bayside.

Luke Yeatman showed continued improvement in form to win the steeple in 9:18.3, although his time was aided by having no water jump due to continued repair works in this area.

Steven Miles had another near miss in the 110 m hurdles, crashing into the 6th hurdle and losing stride to finish with a time of 18.2s after looking great for the first half of the race.

The 400 m runners finished off the night well with Marty Duke showing continued improvement to finish third in the first heat in 48.0, with James Fildes running 50.1 for 4th in the second heat and Tim Heron finishing second in the third heat in 50.6.

With a two week break until the next round, it is important that as many athletes as possible compete at Box Hill on Sat 2nd, Wed 6th and Sat 9th February to make sure that they are qualified for the finals.

The women's team showed improved form from two weeks ago at Ballarat to finish a close third with Anna Thompson and Georgina Power both showing good form and several of the holes in the team being filled with athletes returning to competition.